Maelstrom

Re: Surgical Sterility Field

How about "Only against HARMFUL bacteria or viruses?" Although Change Environment is probably the better course.

Re: Brainstorming a James Bond campaign

1. What might Bond have been doing between 1963 and 1978?

 

2. What events of the late 70s might have been behind Sir Maurice Oldfield being sacked and Sir James Bond being appointed to replace him? (It might of course be something unknown to the publis or to history.)

 

3. What new arrangements and focus might a man like Bond introduce in the late 1970s?

1. He'd be busy with the Cold War. Very busy indeed.

2. Sir Maurice could have been caught up in a Philby-type scandal, or may simply have had a heart attack.

3. He may have expanded counter-terror and the 00 program, or gone the other way, into SIGINT.

Re: Long Timelines

If you still want a rationale for the lack of technology' date=' you may consider that technology is often driven by need. If you have access to healing magic, you probably lack the drive and dedication to pursue scientific medical research, for instance.[/quote']

 

 

This is an excellent point, and one that I often investigate in the course of the game. If you consider magic not anti-technology, but an alternate technology, you can see why the tech that we use and enjoy today would never develop. As I said (and later saw in a short story) any sufficiently developed magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Re: Timelines

Love the biblical time line.

I've never used time lines in Champions, but I do so all the time in Star Hero and Fantasy Hero campaigns.

Re: Starship Bridge Modules

Dude, you rock.

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

I'm running a Star Hero game with one 'jedi', one 'scoundrel' and one 'warrior/killing machine'. They seem to enjoy it.

Re: Computers In Star Hero

Nothing to stop you from using multi slots instead of ultra slots for that multipower. That would simulate the use of computing resources. The skills in question are often more complicated than a simple spreadsheet program.

Re: Miniaturized Manufacturing Units?

I've always used Life Support for food replicators, because it's so much cheaper. Also, I didn't want players using the replicators to build weapons. In Neal Stephanson's The Diamond Age a couple of kids play around with a matter compiler, and there's a discussion that might be illustrative.

Re: Deathstalker novels for Pulp Sci-Fi

I've read the whole series, and find them very interesting, although they take ideas from everywhere, of course. I wouldn't try to build Deathstalker for under 500 points, much of which would be a VPP.

The Madness Maze is the single most interesting part of the whole series, and I've used the concept in many different places. It makes a good 'radiation accident' at the very least.

Re: Superhero Images

Here's mine. I built the costume in CoH, and used it as my avatar. There's a star on the chest.

Re: Comeliness?

I've seen players engage in "comliness wars" -- Kalisti?

But I've always used comeliness to make my characters balance to a sum divisible by 5.

Re: Lots of questions from a lost gamer...

Champions was originally created by George MacDonald. The original HERO games was located in San Mateo, in a building that had some . . . colorful tenants. I remember buying the original blue book in either 1981 or 1982, at Games and Glass in Burlingame.

GURPS is sort of HERO without the flexibility, and with a lot more source material. It's not as flexible, and until DoJ took over HERO, GURPS had much better art. My biggest problem with GURPS is a lack of power frameworks.

Re: Why play Fantasy Hero over other fantasy games?

I've played and run Fantasy Hero. It's more organic than D&D. More complex, more detailed, more flexible. It's a real RPG. The more I play D&D, the more I realize that it started out as a wargame, and then had RPG grafted onto it. The skill system and feats were further grafted onto it. I find D&D boring and limiting -- if I want a warrior that has a freaking healing salve, I build one, darn it!

D&D characters are usually differentiated by their STUFF. "I have a ring of thus and so, and therefore will attack in this fashion." Fantasy Heroes are differentiated by their build, of which their personalized gear is often only a minor part.

Re: Any Arcanum-style campaigns out there?

The hardest thing about running any kind of Victoriana is that you have to really get into the mindset. When I ran Falkenstein, it was fairly easy, as my players were all Dickens fans. The best part is diving into history and picking and choosing your favorite characters. Tea with Disraeli (as an old man, or an immortal, or what have you), cards at the Marlborough club with Bertie (That's PRINCE Albert to you!) with the sole woman in the party dressing in a tux and being treated as a man by the staff and members (none of whom were fooled) because WOMEN are simply NOT ALLOWED at the Marlborough!

Crossing swords with Bismarck . . .

Visiting Vienna when it was a center of political power . . .

Waltzing with a beautiful actress and causing a scandal . . .

Discussing technology with Jules Verne . . .

and characters from Victorian novels, such as Zenith the Albino . . . there are whole websites devoted to characters from Victorian novels, all of whom are fascinating.

Re: Dark Champions Campaigns

I've run Dark Champions, and a Cthulhoid Champions game. But even my 4-color games tend to get dark -- I think it's the nature of the players I have. One beautiful young woman (a new character) was rescued by the group from an experiment conducted by the villain, and the first words out of her mouth were, "I'm going to kill him. Anybody have a problem with that?"

I often have world-spanning conspiracies, light and dark, and the US Gov't is tied up in most of them, light and dark. Some times there's nothing scarier than an IRS auditor.

As for the 'weird' influences, I've had Nyarlehotep show up as a government 'black-ops' specialist, Yog-sothoth as a televangelist, and Cthulhu as a humanoid (but green) woman. As pets go, you can do worse than a Hound of TIndalos, depending on who you need kept out of your base.

Re: Non-standard mythologies

I've run games based on Indian mythology, before. I got the idea from reading "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny. Well worth reading.

Re: New PRIMUS teams

Don't forget that a new superhero base could be a boost to the local economy, as skilled contractors are needed to build the base, and tourism brings in locals and out-of-towners. One of the Senators from the Keystone State could have lobbied heavily on Pittsburgh's behalf -- the equivalent of having an army base in town . . .

Re: Points to pull the trigger

As Kolava points out, you can remove the gun from the target's hand. Having established your ability to do this, anything else can be a special effect. If the gun is OAF, it can be rendered useless with a grab -- it doesn't really matter HOW it is made useless.

Once it's grabbed, I imagine that a STR v. TK contest for control of the gun could be made.

Re: Sidekick character sheet .pdf

Hating brocolli

Is a political act

Free Cauliflower!

Re: damage conversion

You could always use armor, or combat luck.

Re: Using 1-second turns instead of SPD chart

I've been playing Hero System for a long time. You have no idea the type of enlightenment the speed chart brought to an industry designed around the 6-second turn. I believe this would be a false simplification that would cause you to have to create a host of house rules to work around.